Title: Consider This GoodbyeAuthor/Artist: alley_skywalkerPairing(s): Draco/PansyRating: RSummary After the War, Pansy ran to Germany.Word Count: ~1,609Warnings: explicit sexual situationNotes: This fic was originally posted under the title Half a Continent Away. That version is fest-exclusive and tailored to that recipient. This is the version that shall be posted anywhere/everywhere else.

After the War, Pansy ran to Germany. Draco couldn’t really blame her – they all wanted to get away. But he also couldn’t follow her. The Wizarding aristocracy had taken a hard hit after Voldemort’s fall. They’d get through the backlash, Draco knew, but he needed to make a proper name for himself in the new order, independent of his family’s former status. So he’d taken up a post at the Ministry and worked long hours to gather a following, move through the ranks, push for certain bills, help out old comrades in trouble, rouse campaigns and cast doubt on the opposing party – that run by the intimate circle of the Potter-Weasleys.

Draco owled Pansy regularly and she kept him updated as well. Her job as an interpreter – she spoke German much better than French; the Parkinsons were queer that way – her work as a researcher on a team working to integrate spell casting into potion-making, and finally her appointment to a project dealing with Dragons which she wrote little of due to the classification of most of the information related to it. Their initial letters were tender and Draco found himself writing “I miss you” more often than he intended to. Over time, he became almost use to the empty space where she was supposed to be and he read her letters in the morning rush of getting ready for work rather than leisurely at night, over tea or in bed.

They saw each other once, two years after. He was in the middle of a campaign and she – on a stop in London for work to meet a new colleague. She still wore her hair impossibly short for a Pureblood girl and her eyes were still dark and beautiful, but there was something about her business-like manner and plain, practical, black robes that grated on Draco and the stress of the campaign was making him snippy, intolerant. They had lunch – rushed and awkward – talked about the most surface subjects and took leave of each other completely unsatisfied. As she left, he’d kissed her hand with the words, “I hope today was not your best day, Pansy. You are still my fiancé and I care to marry a lady.” She’d tossed her head and smiled sadly at him, something hard flashing across her eyes but at that time he had not noticed.

Pansy told him by owl three weeks later that she was breaking off their engagement. It had felt like the end of the world.

*

The French Ministry ball almost two years after Pansy’s last fateful owl, found Draco escort-less but relaxed and composed. His mother had wanted him to take Astoria with him but he had not wanted to burden himself with the girl. Narcissa was already planning a wedding in her mind but Draco was not even dating the girl, beautiful and well-bred though she was. He had come there for work, out of political reasons, not looking for Pansy or hoping to find her there, but when someone mentioned her name, he looked up and around, eyes scanning across the dance floor, between the twirling couples to try and spot her.

He finally glimpsed her half an hour later, on the arm of a man whose name Draco thought to be Alexander Rosier. She was in a dark, lush-green gown, her hair still short but charmed into ringlets that framed her face and bobbed animatedly when she tossed her head. Rosier wasn’t around for long, and when he left, Draco approached the girl he had once known, loved even, who was now a woman not unrecognizable but changed just enough for him to feel a sudden sense of trepidation.

“Ms. Parkinson?”

She turned, her smile fading slightly. “Draco. I didn’t expect you here.” He couldn’t decide if he felt frustrated or simply fascinated with her light, friendly tone. Pansy’s eyes danced – she had always loved balls.

“I suppose not. We haven’t talked in a long time.”

“True.” She took two glasses of champagne off the trey of a passing waiter and handed him one. “To a reunion then?”

Draco raised his glass in a silent cheers before downing half of it. The champagne stung and sparkled over his tongue and down his throat. When he looked over at Pansy, she was drinking her champagne with a calm, coy luxuriousness, sliding and folding her lips over the rim of the flute, dark eyes watching Draco.

“Are you here with anyone tonight?” he asked finally, once the waltz started and he still hadn’t worked up the courage to ask her to dance, not with the way she was watching him – like a cat ready to pounce if only the prey were to show weakness.

“Oh, no, not formally. There is a gentleman here – Rosier – who works with me. We danced some; he’s very nice. But that’s all.”

“Might we walk some afterwards, if you don’t live too far away?”

She lowered her eyes slightly, lashes brushing over her suddenly rosy cheeks, the first time she had failed to meet his eyes all night. “Of course, Draco.”

*

Draco found himself kissing her in the parlor, his palms pressing against her hips as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tossed her head back. Pansy’s curls tumbled and fell on and off her face and neck and Draco kissed down her throat. She wrapped both legs around his waist, pushing her hips forward. “Bedroom’s that way,” she said, taking a moment from her gasping to point him in the right direction. He carried her down the hall, sometimes knocking into the wall where he would press her flush against the hard surface, grinding his hips against hers.

Somehow, he finally managed to get her to the bed and lay her down. Draco slid the long skirt of her dress up her legs and shrugged out of his robes as Pansy fumbled frantically with the buttons on his waistcoat. Pansy sat up and pushed her long fingers into his hair, nipping gently at the lobe of his ear. “Undo my dress, it’s a corset top,” she whispered and Draco instantly felt his erection hardening to painful proportions. She finished undoing his waistcoat and took it off as Draco fumbled with the lacing on the back of her dress. The more hooks and strings he undid the further her cleavage slid down and the more exposed and loose her breasts became. As he worked to undo her dress, Pansy untucked his shirt and undid the string of his pants. She reached one hand under the waistband, finding his hard member and, in a sliding motion, freed it from its confines. Draco shuddered and tugged at one of the strings on the corset hard enough to almost tear it. Pansy licked her lips, smirking at his expression and began to stroke his erection, encircling it with her soft, long-fingered hand, stroking up and down in a rhythm that was painfully familiar to Draco.

“Pansy, Merlin, Pansy…fuck,” he gasped, his hands shaking so hard he was dropping the laces of the corset with every other movement. She smirked and leaned in to catch his mouth with hers as he finished undoing her top. The corset fell loose and Pansy gasped as her hard nipples were no longer confined by fabric. Draco pushed her back, devouring one nipple after another, tracing circles from base to tip and sucking gently, making Pansy writhe beneath him. He didn’t bother taking off her dress, simply rode the skirt up until it lay thick around her waist and entered her for the first time in years.

Pansy cried out and reached to grab his head, pulling him down to kiss her swelling lips and full breasts as she pushed up to meet his every thrust. They watched each other as they made love, her eyes stormy and dark, his – molten silver…

*

Draco had taken to smoking with the windows open and Pansy, who lay pressed into his side with her head on his shoulder, would steal the cigarette for herself from time to time. The room was silent, save for their breathing which had evened out by then, only the wet strands stuck to Draco’s forehead and Pansy’s messed up curls and utterly swollen lips indicating the passion they had just shared.

“Why did you break off our engagement?” Draco asked suddenly. “Was I no longer good enough for you? Can Mr. Rosier provide for better…satisfaction?” His tone grew more bitter by the moment.

Pansy closed her eyes and stole the cigarette once again, taking a long, blissful drag. “I wouldn’t know,” she said finally, calmly. “But I doubt I’m quite as compatible with anyone as I am with you in bed. But if I didn’t do it then, you would have.”

“What makes you say that?” Something was telling him it was true.

“Because you can’t build a relationship on sex and old school memories, Draco. Especially not when you’re half a continent away from each other.”

He took back his smoke and pondered her words for a few moments. “So what do we do now?”

She laughed quietly. “We don’t do anything, silly. Consider this goodbye if you want. You’ll probably be married before we see each other again. Who knows, I might be too.”

This time around, it didn’t quite feel like the end of the world, and Draco wasn’t entirely sure yet if that pleased him or not. “…Could we…have another go at it then? Before it’s really goodbye.”

He didn’t need to look over to know Pansy was smirking – it was in her voice. “Maybe in the morning, Malfoy.”

I just listened to mizsphinx's podfic of this. It's such a lovely, bittersweet and utterly believable version of how the Draco/Pansy story could have happened. I love that it's Pansy who makes the decision to break things off. She's really quite awesome in this.